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“I needed you to know that, baby. I love you and I’m so sorry for how I failed you. But now you need to make a choice.”
He pulled back from Isobel and pointed behind her.
She turned around and saw her body on a hospital bed, doctors working frantically all around her. And Hunter near the door, an orderly holding him back.
She swung back around to her father. “What? I don’t underst—”
“Sure you do,” her dad said, putting a gentle hand on her arm. “You’re so beautiful.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Just like your mother.”
Isobel jerked back from him. “Exactly.”
Her heart sank as she looked back at herself on the bed. “I’m too much like her, Dad. This will be hard on Hunter. But,” her voice cracked and she had to swallow before going on. “But maybe it’s better this way—before I go crazy like mom and screw everything up. Or if we ever had children…” She shuddered at the thought. No, she’d never put a child through what she’d gone through. Better her heart stop beating while she lay on that hospital bed right this second.
Maybe this was what loving Hunter meant. Hurting him now to save him from the far greater hurt she might inflict later on.
“Baby, you aren’t your mother,” Dad said, his eyebrows furrowed. “All I ever wanted for you was to live your own life. I never wanted that single day to define you. It’s why I tried to get you help.” He shook his head but then took her hands, entreating her. “You’re perfect just the way you are. Whether you come with me now or many, many years from now, please know that. You’re perfect.”
There was such sincerity in his eyes as he repeated it over and over. That she was perfect and he loved her just as she was.
But then he glanced over her shoulder.
“Not much time now. You’ve got to make a decision.”
Isobel’s throat went tight as she turned, looking back and forth from the hospital scene to her father. She didn’t know what was the right thing to do.
“What if I can’t decide? I mean, this is too big. I can’t—”
“Doing nothing is making a choice.”
She clutched her dad’s hands.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
Her eyes moved from her still form on the bed to Hunter, fighting against the orderly, trying to get back to her.
I want a future with you. I want it all. I want to wake up with you every morning and have babies with you and grow old together.
Was she still running? Even now?
Wasn’t Hunter and the life they might have worth facing her worst fears?
It was then that she knew what she had to do. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.
“I love you, Daddy.” She squeezed his hand.
He smiled and it was full of the morning sunlight. “I know that, too. Love you, baby.”
And then she started running.
Toward Hunter.
Toward a future.
Toward life.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
